Antiqua, the Goddess of Lost Vintage Items

I have been a terrible bloggerette this past week.  I just realized that my entire "vacation" has slipped away without a single post all week long. 

"Vacation" is in quotes because it hasn't exactly been a week of lounging on a sofa and eating bon-bons.  I've been sticking with my goal of getting all my antiques organized and my house back into company-ready shape.  And so for seven days straight I have been cleaning (& organizing) cleaning (& organizing) like a good little Suzy Homemaker!

While going through all of my vintage/antique things, I had some items in mind that had gone missing at some point and I was hopeful that I would find them in one of the boxes or piles.

When I was a little girl, whenever one of us lost something my mother would say, "Let's say a prayer to St. Anthony." 

If you grew up Catholic, you probably remember that St. Anthony of Padua is known as the Patron Saint of Lost Articles.  He was pretty good at finding things for me most of time.  But I have lost so many things lately, I decided I'd better summon assistance from another source...

Have you heard of Antiqua? 

She is the Goddess of Lost Vintage Items.
You don't believe me?  Well, just look at what she found this week...

For the longest time, I've been missing a pretty little gray button from this vintage 1940's wool jacket, but I discovered it earlier this week buried in a drawer full of coins.  I was so happy, I sewed it back on right away...

This jacket is one of my favorites because it has a label from a popular downtown St. Paul, Minn. department store that dates back to the 1920's...

Antiqua also helped me find Charmin' Chatty's shoe under my bedroom radiator...

It was missing from this 1963 Whitman puzzle...

Any other Charmin' Chatty or Chatty Cathy fans out there?  I always liked Charmin' Chatty best because me and Charmin' both had to wear nerdy glasses at a young age.

Antiqua came to my rescue again when she helped me find this Hood's Sarsaparilla 1889 Calendar top that disappeared shortly after I bought it on eBay earlier this summer...

She led me right to the Sear's catalog where it had been absent mindedly tucked inside.

Did you know that Hood's Sarsaparilla not only purifies the blood and helps invigorate the liver...but it also cures Scrofula, Rheumatism, Billiousness, Dyspepsia and just about any other disease that you can think of!

You don't believe these claims?  Oh, yea of little faith...

Let me share one final bit of evidence of the goddess Antiqua's powers.  Not only does she help find lost vintage items, but she is also a good luck charm at estate sales too!

On Friday I spotted this lovely antique ledger book at an estate/moving sale in my neighborhood. 

Now I love beautiful old books almost as much as I love beautful vintage clothing - but I'm also very frugal. And I just couldn't bring myself to pay $10.00 for the book. 

Since everything was going to be 50% off today, the second day, I decided to take my chances and plan to be one of the first in the door this morning when the sale opened and quickly grab it - if it hadn't already sold.

Oh, I didn't tell you the best part of the book.  Mr. Chas. D. Freeman was apparently a pharmacist (or doctor?) or was studying to be one - and the first 43 pages are filled with his handwritten notes. 

Here are a couple of "recipes" for Liquid Soap and Boeckmann's Eye Water...

...and here are his notes on Floating Bodies in the eye.

Last night I kept thinking about the book.  How foolish of me to easily spend $10 for a couple of drinks at a bar, yet pass up the opportunity to buy this ledger book which has historical value!

Well, I'll bet you've already figured out that this story has a happy ending.  This morning when I arrived at the sale, the book was still there waiting for me in the very same spot on the bedroom floor where I had found it the day before.  And I got it for $5.00!

Hail to Antiqua! 

She's a great gal to have on your side. 

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...

Happy Saturday morning to you!  It's 6:00 a.m. and I am already on my second latte, hoping to get a little life going in these tired bones.

I need to put on a Shirley Temple smile and positive attitude - because I've got a big day ahead of me.

photo courtesy of The Official Shirley Temple Website

 

"On the Good Ship Lollipop" was the trademark song of child actress, Shirley Temple. Here she is, singing it for the first time in the 1934 movie "Bright Eyes."  Contrary to popular belief, the ship in the song is an aircraft.
In the song, the "Good Ship Lollipop" travels to a candy land. 

Today is Homecoming and Reunion Weekend at the college where I work.  I'll be helping out with some of the booths/events on campus.  No, I won't have to do a song-and-dance routine - but it sure will help if I'm light on my feet!  I'll need to fly to get everything done in time... 

Our college's heritage society (for donors of estate gifts) is sponsoring an "Antiques Roadshow" type event for our alumni.  Doesn't that sound fun?  It's the first year of this event, and I've been asked to bring tons of things in to display around the room - to give it a warm, antiquey feel.  

I expect to be on the go until about 6 pm tonight - but then after that I'm on vacation for a whole week! 

And guess what I'll be doing on my vacation?  Remember my goal of restoring Beauty and Order to my home? Well, this will be my week to get it done!  It feels a little overwhelming to me because I have so much that I'd like to accomplish.

But I think I can do it.   No...I know I can do it.  But encouragement from you, my dear blogging friends, will help too!

I ran across this charming film of the "The Little Engine that Could" from 1963. Maybe it's so charming to me because I have a foggy memory of watching this when I was about 5 or 6 (on TV? in kindergarten class?).   

It seems like the perfect inspiration for this coming week.  Wanna watch it with me?
(The first little bit of the film is a little shaky, but it's fine after that.)

Video courtesy of YouTube's WhosBobThomas


Oh my, and now it's 6:20.  I'd better get moving! I'm excited to share with my colleagues some of the fun old things that I'm bringing to our campus antiques show.

I would share them with you too, but I haven't taken any pictures of them...yet.   But I do have lots of other vintage things that I've collected and photographed over the years that I can show you.  Here are just a few. 

Because time is running short (!) this will be a purely visual and very random display.  Hope you enjoy...

Okay, enough of this nonsense...I had better get to work!!
Have a wonderful day! 

Ode to Barbie Dolls, Rubber Rats...and Blogging

You know, I've always thought that I was a pretty typical little girl growing up...

I played Mommy with my baby dolls (oh, how I loved my dolls!) and then it was Mystery Date with Barbies and my brother's one-armed (he had an accident) G.I. Joe.

I was a bookworm and had my nose buried in a book much of the time, but also had a bit of the tomboy and daredevil in me too.

I remember riding my bicycle down the street near my grade school - with hands raised high, and both eyes shut. Yes, I fell. But I was proud to show off my scuffed knees and elbows to my sibs, daring them to give it a try too.

Typical kid stuff.

But this morning I suddenly remembered The Rat.

When I was about 11 or 12 years old, I bought myself a black rubber rat with babysitting money. It had sort of a slick oily look to it, with a long winding tail and beady red eyes. Ugh...gives me the creeps thinking about it. But I slept with that thing! Its name was Oscar.

I'm not sure what I was trying to prove. I suppose I was at an age when I wanted to show that I wasn't a little girl anymore. (Little girls sleep with dolls, not rats.) Plus, growing up as daughter-number-three in a lineup of 7 girls and 2 boys, I think that I was continuously struggling to stand out in some way. I wanted to be unique. The rat made me eccentric, but that was fine too.

I'm not sleeping with rats anymore. (Or at least I try not to very often. :-) But I know that I've got a lot of that doll-loving, book-crazy, risk-taking, attention-craving girl still in me.

I think I can learn a lot from that little girl - and her rat friend.

As adults, it's important for us to look back often at who we were at 5 and 9 and 12 and ask: What did I like to do? What made me happy? What was I good at? And what did I dream of becoming when I grew up?

"Lucy Writes a Novel" - I Love Lucy episode 90, season 3, originally aired 4/5/1954. Photo courtesy of Clown Ministry

For instance, the career at the top of my "What I Want To Be When I Grow Up" dream list back then was Writer.  But somewhere along the way that dream got lost.  I don't think it was a conscious decision.  Life happens, other options presented themselves, and I chose another path.  

But look what I'm doing right now.  Blogging.  Writing!  In a way that I could never have predicted back then, I have become a writer of sorts - and in a very public venue, the internet!  

No wonder I've been having so much fun blogging. My inner child is finally feeling satisfied.

"Que sera, sera. Whatever will be, will be.
The future's not ours to see. Que sera, sera..."

Doris Day sings Que Sera Sera in the 1956 Alfred Hitchcock film, The Man Who Knew Too Much.  YouTube video courtesy of Zennmann

Curious - as an adult, do you find yourself doing many of those same things that you enjoyed or were especially good at as a child?  For those of you who have a blog - was writing one of those things?  Or does blogging satisfy another need - a creative outlet, perhaps?

I didn't mention that #2 on my list of "What I Want To Be When I Grow Up" was......
Psychologist.  ;-)

Enjoy your weekend! 

p.s. - In case you were wondering about the old family photo - I'm the little girl behind (and above) the sister in the white communion dress. Just five, but I look so cocky and sure of myself.  I want her back...

PFDS: Pattern Folding Deficiency Syndrome

When my ex-husband and I used to take road trips together, he was always the driver and I was the one with the big map spread out in front of me, making sure we took the proper exits and turns.  I did a pretty good job of navigating, but I remember that he used to get frustrated with me because I could never manage to fold that map back up into a neat little rectangle.

Well, if I thought maps were tricky...I find myself completely helpless when it comes to refolding vintage sewing patterns!  Is it just me?  Am I the only one who suffers from PFDS (Pattern Folding Deficiency Syndrome)?

I have these lovely patterns that I bought over the summer that I planned to photograph and share with you today.  And I figured that while I'm at it, I might as well dive into the task of going through the contents of each envelope to make sure that all the pattern pieces are there and everything's complete.

But then I got stuck on the very first Simplicity pattern I opened up.  I had to unfold this long "neck guide" piece to get a look at what letter it was, and for the life of me I can't get it folded up again! 

It's an uncut piece so I believe this must have been how it was folded at the pattern factory. Who was the cruel person at Simplicity who folded it!  What kind of mad mind devised this crazy folding scheme!

It's 38" long, and simply needed to be folded with five straight-across folds to fit in the 8" envelope.  But no, that would have been waaay too easy...  So there are 9 folds on this darn piece - some forward and some back, and two are diagonal.  And I'm determined to get it folded back to its original condition, but it seems impossible!

Okay, now that I got that out of my system, I calmed down and managed to refold this tricky piece along with the rest of the pieces.  See what a pretty I job did!

Maybe if I learn to master the art of folding sewing patterns, I can move on to something more creative like origami:

Hippocampus by Roman Diaz

Or origami inspired fashion, like this:

photo courtesy of Stylehive blog

Okay, enough of this nonsense. :-)
Would you like to see the patterns I found this summer? 
I've been taking a little break from selling, but once I get back into the swing of things I'll be posting these for sale/auction on either Etsy or eBay.  And I promise they will be nicely folded!

This first Hollywood pattern featuring Jane Bryan, a fresh-faced Warner Bros. contract player from the late 1930's, is one of my favorites.  What a sweet eight-gored jumper skirt with suspenders! 



These two Simplicity blouse patterns (above and below) likely date from the late 1940's or early 1950's. 

If you need some assistance with determining the date of your vintage pattern, take a look at this wonderful Cemetarian website.  For each of the major pattern companies, there is a detailed history of how the cover graphics and logos changed over the years.

For example, did you know that McCall patterns didn't add the "apostrophe S" until 1951.  The pretty skirt pattern (above) came out in the first year that they made the change to McCall's.

Here's an early 1940's DuBarry pattern of a classic two-piece dress.  DuBarry suggests these fabrics: pique, gingham, chambray, seersucker, spun rayon and shantung.  Oh, I just love vintage fabric...

Has anyone ever sewn pajamas from a vintage pattern?  This looks like a fun one to try, especially in a cute polka-dot fabric. 

Okay...I just noticed the hankie...  Can you imagine what your husband would say if you climbed into bed with a hankie poking out of your pajama pocket, like in the illustration on the left.  Sexy, huh?  

I'm not much of a seamstress.  Last time I did any serious sewing was over twenty years ago, when I made a tiny gray suit for my son who was the ring bearer in his aunt's wedding. 

I've been trying to get up the courage to give sewing a whirl again - and I thought I might try out the reversible beret in the late 50's/early 60's pattern above.  I figure that if I ruin it, at least I woudn't have spent a lot of money on fabric.

These Simplicity fashions would look great on our favorite Mad Men women, don't you think?  I don't have cable, so I will have to patiently wait until Season 4 is available on Netflix to catch up.  Very frustrating! 

Those of you who have been following my blog know that I love vintage dolls.  So I was excited to find this early 60's "Bridal Gown and Trousseau" Simplicity pattern for Barbie and similar Teen Model Dolls: Babette, Mitzi, Gina, Babs, Kay, Polly Jr., Tina and Tina Marie.  (I must admit, I have never heard of any of these dolls except for Barbie - have you?) 

And here's my favorite pattern find of the summer.  A 1964 McCall's "Instant Wardrobe" for Barbie's Little Sister, Skipper. 

My very first fashion doll was a Skipper doll - a reward from my parents for giving up sucking my thumb.  I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but apparently I must have been sucking my thumb until I was five years old! 

photo courtesy of Fashion Doll Guide

Here's what she looked like - my 1964 straight-legged, titian-haired Skipper doll. My parents didn't have a lot of money (big family!) and I remember that the red striped swimsuit that she came in was the only piece of clothing that she had for a long while.  I dressed and undressed her in that swimsuit over and over again. 

Hmm...a poor, deprived thumb-sucking child with few toys.  No wonder I developed Pattern Folding Deficiency Syndrome!